Government spending on foreign policy rose 6.5% last year to €16.4bn, largely because of the high cost of the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan, according to the government statistics body CBS on Monday.

The defence department accounted for €8bn of that.The Netherlands spent 1.5% of its total gross national income on defence and as such did not meet Nato’s minimum target of 2%, said the CBS.
Total expenditure on development aid in 2006 was €4.3bn, representing 0.8% of gross national income which is above the UN target of 0.7%, said the CBS.